#WEB real-time communication

[oliviadlima]

Web Real-Time Communication Market Overview Research 2020 | Share, Growth Analysis and Forecast to 2027

According to a recent report published by Allied Market Research, titled, “Web Real-Time Communication Market by Component, WebRTC Enabled Devices, and Industry Vertical: Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020–2027,” the global market was valued at $2.73 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $45.91 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 41.7% from 2020 to 2027.

Web real-time communication or WebRTC is an open source collection of application programming interface (API) and communication protocols that enable real-time communication for web browsers and mobile applications. It allows video or audio communication inside web pages by enabling real-time peer-to-peer connection without the need to install additional plugins or native apps. This technology facilitates easy and cost-effective communication in terms of voice, video, and other data. The technology enables video chat, video conferencing, audio call, audio conferencing, text chats, file sharing, gaming, and social networking, typically with internet browsers as endpoints. WebRTC offers real-time communication at low costs with high performance and encryption support.

As WebRTC is adaptable to different system conditions and it is also interoperable with Unified Communications (UC) or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), it facilitates organizations in seamless coordination & communication through their current framework, which is expected to boost the web real-time communication market growth. In addition, rise in adoption of BYOD trend, webification of communications systems, and growth in adoption of WebRTC solution to offer better customer assistance & enhance customer experience are major factors that drive the growth of the market. Moreover, integration of AI and increase in use cases of WebRTC in IoT are anticipated to create lucrative opportunities for the WebRTCmarket expansion.

The solution segment held the majority of the global web real-time communication market share in 2019, and is projected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period. The services segment is expected to witness highest growth rate of 43.8% from 2020 to 2027. This is attributed to need of enterprises to find suitable WebRTC solution and help integrate it with other enterprise applications. Increase in adoption of WebRTC solutions is also expected to boost the demand for these services.

The mobiles segment accounted for the major share among WebRTC enabled devices, owing to rapidly increasing number of smartphone users, growing popularity of communication apps among millennials, and low cost of smart phone devices.

As per region, the global web real-time communication market was dominated by North America in 2019 and is expected to maintain this trend during the forecast period. Factors such as presence of leading companies using WebRTC in their offerings such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google (Duo, Hangout), & others in North America and telecom companies forming alliances with WebRTC developers to recapture the audience are the major drivers for the market growth in this region. In addition, significant adoption of mobility and launch of innovative product offerings are expected to drive the WebRTC market growth during the forecast period. For instance, in April 2017, Grandstream Networks, Inc. launched an innovative web conferencing platform-IPVideoTalk Web Meeting Service that leverages the WebRTC technology to offer high-quality web meeting with HD video & audio through any Mac, iOS, or Android devices.

Inquiry Before Buying: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/2305

Key Findings Of The Study

By component, the solution segment led the web real-time communication market size in terms of revenue in 2019.

By WebRTC enabled devices, the mobiles segment accounted for the highest market share in 2019.

By industry vertical, the healthcare segment is anticipated to exhibit highest growth during the forecast period.

Region wise, North America accounted for the highest revenue in 2019; however, Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to exhibit highest growth during the web real-time communication market forecast period.

The global web real-time communicationmarket analysis includes some of the key market players such as Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Dialogic Corporation, Plantronics, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Plivo, Quobis, Ribbon Communications Operating Company, Inc., Tokbox Inc. (Vonage), and Twilio Inc.

About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of “Market Research Reports Insights” and “Business Intelligence Solutions.” AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

[vindaloo-softtech]

What is WebRTC and How Does It Work?

The recent pandemic forced businesses to adopt the remote working model, and while email was the preferred communication channel, the communication wasn’t happening in real-time. This increased the demand for alternative business solutions for ensuring team communication in real-time without lag. So, businesses started looking for VoIP-based business communication solutions that allow conferencing as well as support rich media.

What is WebRTC?

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a powerful VoIP technology enabling seamless peer-to-peer communication between web browsers and applications. Application programming interfaces (APIs) written in JavaScript make it easy for software developers to integrate different features using WebRTC. These APIs can be included in the developers’ applications in order to enable peer-to-peer (P2P) communications. There are no compatibility issues between the web and mobile applications, and there is audio, video, and text-based content support.

WebRTC enables real-time data flow within web browsers, so developers don’t need to rely on proprietary interfaces, additional plugins, or specialized software for browser integration. Real-time audio and video communication is as simple as opening a webpage and initiating a call.

Understanding WebRTC

WebRTC is an open-source project initiated by Google in 2011, aiming to provide a standardized framework for real-time communication within web browsers. It is built on a set of JavaScript APIs and protocols that allow direct peer-to-peer communication without requiring any additional plugins or software installations. WebRTC encompasses audio, video, and data channels, making it versatile for various communication needs.

Key Applications using WebRTC technology are:

Google Meet

Facebook Messenger

Discord

Amazon Chime

Houseparty

GoToMeeting

Key Components of WebRTC:

To grasp the inner workings of WebRTC, it is essential to understand its core components:

MediaStream: Media Stream represents the audio and video streams captured from the user’s microphone and camera, facilitating real-time communication.

RTCPeerConnection: This API enables the establishment of direct peer-to-peer connections between browsers. It handles the negotiation and management of media streams and their transport.

RTCDataChannel: Alongside audio and video streams, WebRTC offers a data channel allowing bidirectional arbitrary data transmission between peers.

Key WebRTC Architectures

Most WebRTC apps are based on P2P (peer to peer) architecture. While it is the safest way to enable low-ping high-security multimedia connections, it has certain disadvantages when it comes to handling large peer volume or different media streams. By intelligently using media server to act as a common converging point, developers can choose between (i) Multi-point Conferencing Unit (ii) Selective Forwarding Unit architecture to build WebRTC solutions.

Let’s understand all 3 WebRTC architecture types:

Peer 2 Peer

It adopts the concept of tin-can telephones where each user is interconnected with all the other participants. Any media is automatically passed to all the other recipients. Connections are established when each peers broadcasts their IP address. This is highly practical and commonly sought architecture that is simple and easy to set-up but it can be unstable at high peer volume and use up a lot of bandwidth.

Multi-point Conferencing Unit

The MCU architecture employ a central media server and all the peers connect to it. This enables multi-party communication and integrates various audio and video signals into a single stream. So every peer sends and receives the media directly to and from the other party with the media server in the middle and this allows MCU architecture to support larger number of connected peers. Additionally, MCU transmits standard signals that can be decoded on legacy systems as well without any decoder, making it compatible with most systems. However, this architecture is resource-heavy and it is costly to scale.

Selective Forwarding Unit

The selective forwarding unit architecture also employs a central media server that accepts media from all peers and them forwards to the others. However, SFU inspects the media streams and then decides which streams will be forwarded. It can save bandwidth by transcribing media streams based on the most compatible stream. The only disadvantage is that in every call with (n) peers, each peer has one outgoing stream and (n-1) incoming streams. So as the caller volume increases, the load on the central server in terms of computing power, bandwidth and, eventually, money. However, the resource demand is less than p2p architecture and multiple clone media servers can be used for load sharing.

How does WebRTC work?

WebRTC follows a series of steps to establish a connection between two browsers:

Media Capture: The user grants permission to access their microphone and camera, enabling the capture of media streams.

Signaling: Before establishing a peer-to-peer connection, the browsers need to exchange signaling messages to exchange crucial information, such as network addresses and supported codecs. WebRTC does not standardize this step and requires developers to implement a signaling mechanism.

ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment): WebRTC utilizes the ICE framework to establish network connectivity between peers. It employs various techniques like STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) and TURN (Traversal Using Relays around NAT) to overcome network address translation (NAT) issues.

Peer Connection Establishment: Using the information exchanged through signaling, the browsers create an RTCPeerConnection, enabling direct communication between them.

Media and Data Transmission: Once the peer connection is established, WebRTC facilitates the transmission of media streams (audio and video) and data through the RTCDataChannel.

WebRTC Use Cases:

WebRTC’s versatility and ease of integration have made it widely adopted across diverse applications. Some everyday use cases include:

Video Conferencing: WebRTC powers real-time video conferencing solutions, allowing users to communicate seamlessly without requiring additional software installations.

Live Streaming: Platforms providing live video and audio streaming leverage WebRTC for delivering content directly to browsers.

File Sharing: Webrtc’s data channel enables secure and efficient peer-to-peer file sharing between users.

Gaming: Multiplayer online games benefit from WebRTC’s low latency and high-quality audio/video capabilities.

You can learn more about why your business needs WebRTC development.

Benefits of WebRTC Development

Whether you are a WebRTC developer or an end-user of a WebRTC-based product, it has many benefits over other communications and collaboration platforms.

Free To Use and Ever Evolving

WebRTC is an open-source application programming interface by Google. So, developers don’t need to pay any licensing fee or royalties for developing web apps using WebRTC. Moreover, the WebRTC community is ever-growing, which means the platform improves daily.

Highly Accessible

Applications built using WebRTC can be accessed from anywhere using any compatible web browser. This means companies don’t need to invest in specialized hardware or software to use WebRTC. Simply an internet-connected mobile device can be directly used for placing high-quality audio and video conference calls.

Secure audio & video

WebRTC enforces SRTP protocols for authenticating and encrypting voice and video content. This means the call will have no unwanted intrusions and exceptionally high-quality media transfer. Additionally, STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) and TURN (Traversal Using Relays around NAT) ensure the call can be placed while overcoming network address translation (NAT) issues.

Interoperability

An upside for WebRTC lies in the interoperability with existing voice and video systems. Whether the end-user has a device using SIP, Jingle, XMPP, etc., there will be no interoperability issues present.

Rapid application development

Contrary to popular belief, developers don’t need extensive knowledge depth for developing WebRTC apps. Standardized APIs can reduce application implementation time and streamline the development process.

No plugins required

Most real-time communication software and apps require a plugin to support calling using a browser. Instead of degrading the user experience by forcing the end-user to install these plugins, most browsers directly support WebRTC-based apps.

Screen sharing

WebRTC video chat apps allow for remote screen sharing with another device or user, provided both have the necessary permissions. Built within the specification are mechanisms for recording user activity, such as screen recording.

Easy to embed

WebRTC allows developers to create any content management interface in HTML5 and JavaScript, allowing WebRTC to be seamlessly integrated into any software project. It also helps the IT department save time and effort by reducing the amount of manual integration work that must be done in-house.

How can different industries benefit from WebRTC development?

Education

Utilizing the power of WebRTC, software development companies can create eLearning platforms that allow tutors and students to collaborate in virtual classrooms. Using video conferencing and media transfer, tutors can share notes, teaching materials and even conduct tests.

Entertainment

WebRTC has benefited online gaming, virtual reality, and augmented reality. However, the entertainment sector is only now beginning to use real-time communication. However, there have been numerous instances where players have been able to communicate with one another while playing a game, proving that technology is being effectively utilized.

Healthcare

WebRTC has been utilized by a number of healthcare providers to increase customer interaction and deliver quick services and care. WebRTC has simplified many things, including booking online health check-ups, having video consultations with doctors, and getting same-day delivery of medications.

eCommerce

Imagine instantly starting a Whatsapp chat with someone by clicking a button on the website you’ve been browsing. Due to its simplicity, WebRTC makes it easier for businesses and customers to communicate directly and effectively. With the use of WebRTC, shopping websites can even incorporate video conferencing or interactive product trials.

Surveillance

You have access to this video surveillance technology using WebRTC, which uses AI algorithms to detect suspicious behavior and support facial recognition. Additionally, it may record films and images for later viewing, alerting you with a photo preview. HD audio and video capture makes two-way chat and head-to-toe video recording possible. WebRTC can be used by surveillance technologies to relay communication in a time and place where privacy is becoming a major concern. Direct phone check-in alerts put your safety in danger.

Video Conferencing

Real-time communication was only possible with the introduction of the internet, thanks to supplemental software like Adobe Flash or plugins. Today, we can easily communicate in real-time using Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, or Opera, thanks to WebRTC. You can also send and receive any kind of media over the internet, thanks to WebRTC. It doesn’t make use of any extra frameworks. However, clients do not need to constantly send and receive messages via a server. As a result, direct communication across browsers speeds up performance and reduces latency. Many other industries can enjoy the benefits of business growth from WebRTC.

Wrapping Up

WebRTC has revolutionized real-time communication on the web, enabling developers to build powerful applications with seamless peer-to-peer connectivity. Its standardized APIs, along with media and data channels, simplify the process of integrating real-time communication capabilities into web applications. If you are looking for WebRTC development services or wondering what products are possible with WebRTC, get in touch with our experts at Vindaloo Softtech.

[differenttimemachinecrusade]

Web Real-Time Communication Market Size, Share, Scope, Key Market Drivers, Analysis, Forecast, Growth, and Industry Report 2032

The Web Real-Time Communication Market sizewas valued at USD 7.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 128.2 Billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 37.51% over the forecast period of 2024-2032.

The Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) market is experiencing unprecedented growth, driven by the increasing demand for seamless, browser-based communication solutions. Businesses across various sectors are rapidly adopting WebRTC to enhance their digital engagement and improve user experience. This surge in adoption is being propelled by the need for real-time audio, video, and data sharing capabilities, all while bypassing traditional telecommunication infrastructure.

The Web Real-Time Communication market has evolved significantly in recent years, with a range of trends influencing its expansion. Among the most notable is the growing emphasis on enhancing video and audio quality, making communication smoother and more reliable.

Get Sample Copy of This Report: https://www.snsinsider.com/sample-request/3824 

Market Keyplayers:

Google - Google Meet

Twilio - Twilio Video

Agora - Agora Video SDK

Vonage - Vonage Video API

Microsoft - Microsoft Teams

Zoom - Zoom Video SDK

Cisco - Cisco Webex

Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Amazon Chime SDK

Daily.co - Daily.co Video API

Jitsi - Jitsi Meet

8x8 - 8x8 Video Meetings

Sinch - Sinch Video

TokBox (now part of Vonage) - OpenTok

Pexip - Pexip Infinity

Whereby - Whereby Meeting

RingCentral - RingCentral Video

Mangoceuticals - Mangoceuticals Telehealth Platform

Wowza - Wowza Streaming Engine

Xirsys - Xirsys WebRTC Platform

WebRTC Ventures - WebRTC Solutions for Businesses

Web Real-Time Communication Market Trends

The WebRTC  Additionally, businesses are embracing WebRTC as a cost-effective solution, eliminating the need for proprietary software or plugins. Furthermore, the increasing use of WebRTC for mobile communication, remote work solutions, and telehealth services is further accelerating the market's growth. Companies are also integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with WebRTC to improve communication quality, automate tasks, and create more personalized experiences for users.

Enquiry of This Report: https://www.snsinsider.com/enquiry/3824 

Market Segmentation:

By Deployment

On- Premise

Cloud-Based

By Solutions

Voice Calling & Conferencing

Messaging & File Sharing

Video Calling & Conferencing

Others (Online Gaming)

By Enterprise type  

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Large Enterprises

By Vertical  

BFSI

Healthcare

Media & Entertainment

IT & Telecom

Market Analysis

Adoption by Enterprises: Enterprises are increasingly relying on WebRTC for internal communications, client-facing services, and customer support due to its low latency and scalability. It is also being adopted for online meetings, collaboration tools, and virtual events, further expanding its application.

Integration with Cloud Solutions: The integration of WebRTC with cloud-based solutions is streamlining communication services. Cloud computing offers scalability and flexibility that businesses need, allowing them to manage real-time communications effectively without heavy infrastructure investments.

Mobile and Remote Work Solutions: With the rise of remote work, WebRTC's ability to provide reliable real-time communication has made it a go-to technology for mobile apps, video conferencing, and collaboration platforms.

Security and Privacy Enhancements: Security is a critical concern in real-time communication. As such, there has been a heightened focus on WebRTC security standards, including end-to-end encryption, to ensure that users’ data is protected while maintaining a high-quality communication experience.

Future Prospects of the WebRTC Market

The WebRTC market is poised for continued growth in the coming years. Innovations in artificial intelligence, 5G connectivity, and cloud technologies are expected to further enhance the market's capabilities. Additionally, as the global workforce becomes increasingly decentralized, the demand for real-time communication solutions will continue to rise, solidifying WebRTC’s position as an essential tool for remote collaboration. In particular, WebRTC’s use in sectors such as healthcare, education, and e-commerce will likely expand, with organizations in these fields recognizing its potential to improve accessibility and streamline processes.

Access Complete Report: https://www.snsinsider.com/reports/web-real-time-communication-market-3824 

Conclusion

The WebRTC market is rapidly evolving and transforming how businesses and individuals communicate. With its impressive scalability, cost-effectiveness, and the growing demand for real-time interaction, WebRTC is set to revolutionize industries across the globe. As technological advancements continue to shape its future, we can expect WebRTC to remain at the forefront of the communications landscape, providing innovative solutions that cater to the ever-changing needs of modern society.

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[saintshadow]

What should you be aware of?

pile i

The fact that you’re better off than you assume yourself to be. I get the vibe you constantly worry for no real reason. Idk you just seem pessimistic in my personal opinion. I feel like you’re realizing things are okay. You could be coming into the deeper parts of adulthood. (25+) or even finally reaching your 20’s! Though I do sense this is 25+ vibes. 30 is the number I keep hearing in specific. It seems like you have a problem of dissatisfaction. Things just aren’t ever good enough for you, and honestly I see WHY you feel that way. Like security/abundance is cool, but feeling like that spark inside of you isnt being fed sucks real bad. I feel like you could be experiencing a lot of mundane disturbances & annoyances. Feeling as if you are unappreciated or underdeserved by those around you even. Sometimes your head gets in the clouds and you need to refocus and ground. You are easily hurt/offended and have tendencies towards bitterness- I understand WHY, dgmw. It’s just that you need to be more hyper aware of this because it’s starting to affect your relationships.

pile ii

Change, I keep hearing change by deftones. You’re honestly a bit of an emotionally vacuous hole sometimes. Like you forget how to consider other people or connect with them empathetically because you have little to no empathy for yourself. I feel like this is NATURALLY who and how you are, but sometimes you have to try to connect or reach out more. I feel like this pile kind of already knows everything they need to be aware of. Some of you could struggle with fear or anxiety with water? Idk why that just came to me, you’re going through some pretty uncomfortable changes and transformations. Others could be uncomfortable with you because of this. Like you almost don’t seem like you’re able to effectively communicate or meaningfully connect with the world around you because you’re uncovering some kind of divine wisdom inside of yourself through this transformation.

pile iii

Things are improving, even if it feels like you are still stuck you will be free, for some reason I’m thinking of silk moths. How difficult it is for them to get out of their cocoon, you could feel stuck in the cocoon so to speak but I think your molting process is actually just beginning. Perhaps you fear never leaving the cocoon, you feel trapped and exposed in it as if you can’t seem to just be free. I sense emotions of embarrassment and rage, it feels like life has not been fair to you. It usually isn’t fair to anyone unfortunately, but regardless; you’ll find soon that things are getting less painful. Some of you could be struggling because you don’t see that now is a time to shed and not take physical life action. This is why your plans keep getting blocked, because you’re becoming a whole version of yourself. Meaning that you have to let go of the protection of the cocoon. As much as you hate the cocoon, you remain stuck inside of it, it’s like there are little webs and pieces you aren’t seeing that all this fussing and movement in your cocoon is helping remove to make your molting process easier. Have faith and chill out. 🫡

@honeyluvsw credited for these beautiful solar dividers

[deikshen]

More DILF Shen Yuan because I woke up from that mood

Shen Yuan has an ex-wife with whom he gets along well, an older daughter who is already of legal age as geeky as he is, two younger thirteen years old twin sons, and his daughter under ten years old. He is closer to fifty than forty, and apparently a traditional life with a wife and children was what was necessary for him to accept how terribly homosexual he is.

But that's okay, he supposes. Accepting his sexuality, learning to communicate better... Necessary things. His ex-wife is now his friend, his children are well raised with lots of love and patience. Shen Yuan does not consider his divorce a failure, as his brothers accuse him, just another experience. He was not happy in his marriage. Why should he remain in a place where he was not happy?

Then one day, Luo Binghe knocks on his door.

Shen Yuan looks at the haughty man dressed in xianxia robes, a sword on his back, says "fuck not today" and closes the door in his face. Luo Binghe enters anyway. Look, Shen Yuan may enjoy the habit of reading and trashing web novels... That doesn't mean he accepts web novel protagonists ending up at his doorstep! Really!!

Luo Binghe looks shocked to see him, Shizun this, Shizun that. He looks at him as if Shen Yuan in his haughty fifties with gray hair and a tired face had two heads or four arms.

Well, it's Luo Binghe. Shen Yuan knows that he has no chance to fight him. It's not even opposed to the idea of fantasy - age drains one's imagination. If Luo Binghe is there, great, damn, he really is there.

Shen Yuan takes a deep breath, scolds him for breaking his door, tells him that he's really not in the mood for games or riddles. He has to finish correcting some important files which must be delivered no later than tonight. Luo Binghe is invited to stay as long as he keeps that sword away from his children. This week they will be with their mother, but not the following week, and that is his only condition. He's not going to let the kids near that sword.

... Luo Binghe surprisingly accepts it.

In reality, Shen Yuan is concentrating on his work so as not to think that there is a xianxia protagonist inspecting every aspect of his house. By the time he submits the corrections he owes, it's not even dusk yet and Luo Binghe is sitting on the sofa in the living room, watching a historical drama that Shen Yuan sometimes watches with a look of surprise. Shen Yuan explains the plot to him a bit and when it seems that Luo Binghe is more lost than found, he actually asks him what he wants. How did he get there? Why to his house? What does he want?

Luo Binghe looks annoyed that he has to explain - as if Shen Yuan should know beforehand or just agree to Luo Binghe's demands without asking! He explains about opening portals with Xin Mo, a strange world where there was another him, a kind Shizun married to another Luo Binghe. Something about a soul exchange, tracing the soul back to... him. Luo Binghe wants that kind Shizun for himself. He wants what is rightfully his. Why would a Luo Binghe have someone like that in his life, and he wouldn't?

Shen Yuan tries to be open-minded enough. Well, it's not like there's any other explanation. Luo Binghe shows him his claws, his zuiyin, and it's clear that he really is who he says he is. Shen Yuan assumes that a version of him (different? Who came out of the closet before marrying a woman?) transmigrated and took his favorite character as a husband, even if it is from the skin of the scum villain. Well, congratulations to him. Shen Yuan wishes them all the best.

But now there is a very real, very demonic, very traumatized Luo Binghe in his living room, watching a transmigration drama, trying to understand everything. Shen Yuan feels sad for him. He definitely needs kindness, good treatment, better care. These are not things he gets in the harem! Always having to be the provider, the protector, the one who gives his all. Shen Yuan had always been annoyed by that part of the story.

Well, now he can change that, can't he?

He tells him that he is not willing to go with him. He has a very good job as an editor, his children have an arrangement to spend one week at his house and one week at their mother's house, he has a good relationship with his ex-wife. Going to another universe would complicate his life as long as he doesn't do it during his vacation season.

However, Luo Binghe is welcome to stay. Shen Yuan will be kind to him, but if Luo Binghe wants to, he must communicate about it. And he cannot talk about other worlds, demons, harem or emperors when his children are at home. Luo Binghe doesn't quite agree, but he agrees. Shen Yuan promises him that he will take a vacation and go to that world of his to meet him, but it won't be right away. Luo Binghe is a little appeased by that.

And so, a few days later, Shen Yuan picks up his children from his ex's house and tells them: "I've brought a friend to live with us for a while."

He explains to them that he comes from far away, that he doesn't know much about the city or technology, that he speaks strangely and that it can be overwhelming. But he is a good friend, he cooks exquisitely, and he will enjoy spending time with them.

(Luo Binghe would not agree to that last point.)

They are somewhat wary, a wariness that goes away when they enter a house that smells of delicious, unburned home-cooked food. After dinner, they are more willing to accept Luo Binghe into their home and their life. And Luo Binghe does his part well: he behaves pleasantly, speaks casually, does not terrify or intimidate the children, he is a functional adult... As soon as the kids go to their rooms he looks up at Shen Yuan with big puppy eyes waiting for pats on the head for being good.

Sweet Jesus. Shen Yuan is too out of the closet for this. How will he survive this Luo Binghe who just wants to be treated kindly without spoiling him and showering him with all the love he deserves?

[girasois]

words for users !

ideias de palavras aleatórias para ajudar você a criar seu próprio user;

random ideas of words to help you to create your own user.

core -> aesthetic core

vlog -> daily videos

logs -> daily facts

mp3 -> audio file format

m4p -> apple audio file format

mp4 -> video file format

txt -> text format

jpeg -> image file format

jpg -> image file format

png -> image file format

gif -> animated file format

raw -> uncompressed file format

zip -> compressed archive file format

rar -> compressed archive file format

web -> internet file format

doc -> document file

pdf -> document file

vinyl -> phonograph record

film -> motion picture; photography

user -> person who utilizes a computer or network service

i2 -> "keeping it real"

self -> a person's essential being

itself -> a person's essential being

priv -> private

luv -> love's short form

tale -> a fictitious or true narrative or story

archive -> to place or store (something) in an archive

list -> connected items

tier -> a type of hierarchy

talk -> speak in order to express something

chat -> to have a conversation

post -> to announce or publish something

zone -> a subject to particular restrictions

vie -> life in french

tie -> to form a knot or bow in

on/online -> connected to a network

byte -> a group of binary digits 

bits -> a small piece, part, or quantity of something

ram -> hardware in a computing device

8bit -> computer term used to designate either color depth

pixel -> a minute area of illumination on a display screen

data -> things known or assumed as facts

series -> a number of things, events, or people of a similar kind

village -> a self-contained community within a town or city

lab -> a laboratory

lady -> a woman

miss -> a form of address to a woman

mister -> a form of address to a man

error -> something not found

art -> the various branches of creative activity

petit -> small in french

poet -> a person possessing special powers of imagination or expression

thing -> an object without a specific name

stuff -> a vague reference to additional things

vogue -> the prevailing fashion or style at a particular time

tv -> taylor's version and/or television as a system or form of media

media -> the main means of mass communication

topia -> an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect

saur -> forming names of extinct reptiles such as dinosaurs

tune -> a melody, one that characterizes a particular piece of music

deun -> melody in deutsch

off/offline -> disconnected from the Internet

gloss -> shine or luster on a smooth surface

fae -> a fairy, in modern fantasy fiction

[hydrophobicmenace]

The interesting thing about QSMP is that it is a perfect example of how people spontaneously mimic the structures of human societies when they are thrown into a situation together, and the best part is that the resulting dynamics were totally unforeseen by Quackity himself.

We knew that the point of creating pairs and assigning each of them a little creature to protect was to incentivize people to break the language barrier and bridge the cultural gap—that’s the whole reason this server existed. And it worked wonderfully. What I’m sure the admins didn’t account for, however, is that because these creatures were played by real people, they developed personalities of their own and before they knew it, what was supposed to be a temporary event turned into the very core of the server.

It's hard to explain to people the sheer impact that the eggs left on all of us without sounding like we’re completely insane. Our brains are really bad at making the difference between real and fictional relationships (if there even is such a thing), so when you spend weeks taking care of a little egg that follows you around and eats the food you make and calls you its parent, you don’t just go about your day pretending that it’s all a game.

(Except Roier. This guy has exceptional mental fortitude.)

We are social animals. We look out for each other. When someone lets an egg die, it feels like a failure on ourselves and the people who put their faith in us. Look at Slime, he literally exiled himself for it. So they start weaving a net to stop their fall, a web of connections between the islanders that can withstand outside pressure. It takes a village, they say. The islanders came together to protect something dear to their hearts, and from their efforts bloomed a tight-knit community that never would have seen the light of day in different circumstances.

Accidents still happen, of course. But at least you’re not alone to face them. I often think about how every single person on the server at the time was immediately willing to accompany Jaiden and Roier on an 8k blocks journey to the place of Bobby’s death, not because Cucurucho told them to, but because they didn’t want the pair to face this hardship on their own. They didn’t need to know them well to volunteer—hell, the francophones had literally crash-landed the day before and Kamel probably thought that Bobby was some kind of pet still. They just did, because that’s what people do for each other. They’ll stand outside of the room where two grieving parents are saying goodbye to their child and discuss plans for a funeral because they understand that it’s the last thing you want to think about when you’re mourning, and someone has to do the unpleasant work.

Grief is a really silly and complicated thing that is difficult to simulate. I don’t think anyone would willingly put themselves in the state of anguish that some of the players were in during that time. Like Bad said, it was a genuinely traumatizing experience, yet you just had to live through it to understand why he didn’t regret any of it. These eggs were their babies—imagine someone gives you a little creature and asks you to sing them lullabies and bring them on adventures until it becomes something you look forward to every day, only to take them away from you on a whim—how fucked up is that?

But even in those moments of tragedies, there is some light to be found. Even as the Brazilians are sat around Maximus in a sullen silence while he plays the harmonica, the francophones are busy collecting bricks a couple feet away and discussing their plans for Pomme—literally ensuring the future of the island in real time. And they did a fantastic job of it. I’ve never seen people fight so hard for the life of a Minecraft egg; French viewers were literally threatening to organize a revolution on the bird app in case things didn’t go their way. You don’t typically do that for a two-week old cubito.

When you think about it, prying this server from their cold dead hands was really the only way to end this.

[caparrucia]

Rings my fucking bell, like a perennial fucking plague maiden:

Center harm, not disgust!

When in doubt (and when not in doubt, just swept by problems bigger than you and assured by someone that they know the answer, so don't think right now, just Do!), center harm.

Focus on what specific harm you're reducing with your actions. Make sure it's tangible and concrete. If your actions are minimizing hypothetical harm at the cost of real, tangible harm on others, 9 out 10 times you're on the wrong fucking side, being weaponized by propaganda.

If a conversation revolves around disgust as a driver for action, you're being radicalized. If a call to action depends on your emotional response, you're being manipulated. I'm sorry, this isn't the 90s anymore, social media has eroded the web of respectability of the pre internet society. The primary axis for misinformation to spread in this day and age is emotional response: half the things you believe are true and share as such are not based on fact, expert opinion or personal research. Social media has conditioned us (all of us! You and me and most dangerously of all, the idiots we put in power) that if something feels true, it probably is.

But do you know for sure it is? Do you think it's true because you have first hand experience or actual time spent on reputable sources learning it to be fact? Or just because it aligns with your worldview and it would be nice for you if it were true?

Are you taking action because you're angry and a group of fellow angry folk invited you to join them? Do you have a plan or is this just catharsis? Are you aware of the consequences of your actions or are you drunk on rage and focused only on the immediate future?

Center harm. Center specific actions and their consequences.

Discomfort is not harm. Disgust is not harm. Hypothetical paranoia is not harm.

The reactionary pipeline is real and your self-image as a progressive is not actually enough to save you from falling down the hole. Radicalization is not hinged on politics alone. Saying you're a leftist is worthless if your thought process and actions themselves are indistinguishable from qanon losers. Conspiratorial thought has literally no politics inherently, and your insistence it does is pure lack of critical thought on display.

Center harm, not feelings, not politics, not group think.

Center harm, and remember that individual actions cannot dismantle systemic structures on their own, so anyone who calls for individual action at the cost of community structures is not actually trying to change anything, and instead actively suppressing efforts to make anything better in any way.

[pyxxiestyxx]

How to Find a Traitor

Hi! This was inspired by This Hypnotic Audio by VerityLey, which is insanely hot....but also, yknow, CW for this being based on a very real hypnosis file that can give you very real hypnotic triggers (and while I don't think this story would do that on its own...safety first and all that). So y'know, just keep that in mind, I suppose ;p

. . . . .

Who was it?

The Captain of the C.N.S. Byzantium was known as a cruel, harsh man.  Many were the days he had spent chasing down defectors, and many were the names of those who had... disappeared, once he had inevitably sniffed them out as plantfuckers.  

Couldn't be someone from Engineering...unless that's exactly what they wanted him to think.

Even though he had only served for a single year as Captain, the turnover rate aboard his ship was almost three times the amount of any other of its class.  This despite the latter half of his year spent with his ship in drydock, slowly receiving repairs while the battle against the Weeds raged onward.  

He winced as he remembered the close call that had completely knocked out his engines and eventually sent them limping into the nearest safe haven.  How nearly half of his crew had been taken by the damnable affini...and the angry chewing out he had received from his superiors within the New Terran Militia (or whatever it was they were calling themselves these days; it seemed to change every month).  

Was that their plan?  Get him kicked out of leadership, make him slow and dull?  An empty-headed idiot, unable to think? Not him. Never him.

The Captain scowled at his hands, at the thickened band of skin caused from years of running his fingernails over the backs of his thumbs.  His thoughts sometimes felt muddled, messy. The lines drawn between the web of relationships hard to keep track of. Even if it didn't make sense to him, he was still in control.  

He just needed to find this most recent traitor, and then he would finally be able to sleep right.  He knew they were in his crew...somewhere.  He could feel it in his gut. Outbound communications had been rising steadily, and his newest Comms Officer (the previous one had, of course, been a traitor as well) had quietly notified him of that fact.

A knock at the door drew him from his thoughts.  A pause, and then the door opened to reveal something that finally brought the ghost of a smile to his lips: two of his most trusted Officers, and an Ensign they were practically dragging in behind them.  The lad was barely out of Naval Academy, boots still muddy from spending so much time on-planet.  The recruit's eyes danced across the room, unable to settle. Pumped full of adrenaline, as sure a mark of a traitor as he had ever seen. The innocent had nothing to hide.

How could such a fresh-faced recruit have found himself in this position? How long ago had the worms buried into his mind?

The Officers set their prisoner down roughly in the only chair in the room for guests, then took their leave.  The door creaked shut, locking itself automatically. Only he had the key. The Captain preferred to handle these sorts of things by himself; the guilt of an innocent loss would weigh on him, and him alone.

Fortunate for him, then, that he had yet to make a mistake.

The Ensign stirred, face pale with fear as he realized just how screwed he was.  The Captain waited while he continued to look around; they always spoke first, eventually.  It was just a waiting game. This time, he waited three minutes.

"I...um, Good Afternoon, sir?"

The Captain slowly blinked as the recruit nervously stammered, unimpressed.  He sounded nervous, shaken- clearly not cut out for the life of a rebel.  No doubt the Affini Compact had offered him a whole bevy of comforts to get him on their side. Two square meals, warm showers for a full minute and a half, the kind of stuff he hadn't gotten in years.

What a fool to accept them.

The traitor bit his lip, then snapped a salute as he spoke again.  "I'm... I'm here to, um, that is...whatever it is Juarez said, it's all a lie, okay?  I'd never betray my brothers and sisters, I swear it!"

A common refrain, an attempt to assuage doubts.  The Captain's stare only tightened, pinning the young man in place while he opened a hidden compartment in the left side of his desk, retrieving a few items and placing one on the table, and keeping the other in his right hand.

The tools of the trade for this kind of thing.

He glanced at the tablet first, scrolling through with one hand until he found the Ensign's information, skimming it quickly.

Ah....of course.

Just as he suspected.  Those in charge had designated Recruit Burkes as a clear potential ally to the Compact after accidentally speaking with a Mx. Drythes, Third Bloom, over a communication device disguised cleverly as a bar's video game; the report made great effort to impress how dangerous it would be to leave someone like Burkes in the rebels for much longer. 

He needed to be...removed.

The Captain pushed down the feeling of guilt in his chest. It was for the best; once the Affini Compact got their vines into you, you were as good as theirs forever. There wasn't any point in trying to bring the recruit back (something he found hard to believe...but those in charge had insisted. Who was he to argue?). Burkes would soon be in a better place, and that was all there was to it.

There was only one thing to do, really.  Even if it didn't make sense to him, the orders were clear.

The Captain levelled the service weapon in his hand, aiming it center-mass at Burkes; he rose to his feet and stepped back and over to the bookshelf in the corner.  He accessed the hidden switch on the underside of the middle shelf, sliding the whole thing over and revealing a darkened passageway.

Almost done...almost done.

The satisfaction of a job well done dangled just out of reach…but no.  Premature celebrations were for others; not the Captain. He knew the hardest part was yet to come; felt it in his gut like vent-critters.

The crewman got to his feet (albeit shakily), eyeing the tablet the Captain held in his other hand.  Burkes chewed on his lip, but upon seeing the iron in the Captain's eyes, decided to comply; the recruit cautiously stepped into the dark passage, the Captain following a few steps behind.  Neither of them spoke; they both knew there was no longer a point.

Soon, it would be over. Soon, the Captain would get a reward.

Why was his heart beating so rapidly?

It wasn't the first time he had done this.  The passage in general was created months ago, serving as a way for the Captain to take care of such business in a discreet manner.  No mess, no worrying about others, just clean and simple and safe.

...Simple...

And yet with each step, the feelings grew and grew. The Captain's eyes darted left and right, searching for...something.  Someone.  But the passage was dark and narrow; they were alone.

The thought of that was...upsetting.

The Captain frowned.  Why?  This is how it had always worked.  Even if it didn't make sense, all that was left to do was bring Burkes to the end (a spot of light rapidly approaching), and then there was…

There was something…that the Captain wasn't supposed to worry about?

It doesn't...it doesn't make sense to...

“Good puppy~” *click click*

The pieces fell into place.  The veil was lifted.  

Oh.

The two Terrans stepped out of the darkness and right into an ambush, vines of soft green and deep blue shooting out and binding them both before they had a chance to blink.  Burke let out a strangled yell of panic, but an injection from her new Mxtress immediately began to calm her right down, based on the noises made soon after.

"There you areeeee, silly little puppy~!"  The vines binding the Capt...the puppygirl squeezed her tightly, drawing excited yips and barks from her like water from a well.  she fell into Mistress's grasp with delight, dropping the tablet Mistress had given her and the squirt-gun (it shot a harmless paralytic) to focus entirely on licking all over her Owner's face.

she was such a Good girl!  she obeyed, and listened, and no one got hurt, and was a Good girl, and everyone was happy!!! she was home she was with Owner and this was her favorite part and Good girls got rewarded!

*click click* went the little circle in Owner's hand, the sound sending shivers of pleasure down her back, causing her eyes to roll and drool to fall. Dumb little puppies like her got Clicker, and it was...sho good...

“Settle down girl, come on now~” puppy’s Owner giggled, brushing her vines through the girl's long hair, which was hidden beneath the cap she usually wore when pretending to be the Old Meanie.  her previous self, the one before Owner had found her on that ship, the one she had ripped from her spirit and soul so lovingly over the months in dry dock.

“Wh…whhhuz goin…on?” The cute rescue, the one-who-used-to-be-Burkes, mumbled through her teeth, having already been stripped and redressed in a flowery flowy slip of a thing. She was already looking so much better, with pupils wide and gaze empty.  

“It's quite simple, little one~ You see, my obedient and precious little girl here, who you may know as the Captain, did what she did best…” Owner smiled down at the puppy, making small coo-ing noises. The puppygirl giggled, writhing as her tummy got rubbies.

*click click* *click click* *click click*

“she fetched what was asked of her.  Such a Good girl, yes you areeeee, yes you areeeee!” Owner began to scritch under puppy’s chin, causing feminine moans and squeals of delight to slip free from her soul.  It was so hard pretending to be a mean nasty angry Captain, which is why Owner did that thing in her head to help!  She didn't really understand how it worked, but that was okay.

How the affini had broken her? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

What was going to happen to the rest of her crew? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

Her Owner's plans for her? Doesn't make sense to puppy!

*click click*

puppy felt the thoughts and questions blissfully slip from her mind, giggling in delight.  Stars, she was such a ditzy little happy pet.  So well trained, so mal…malle…um…so well trained!  Owner tilted her head up to gaze into her eyes, and puppy felt so happy...and a bit sad.

Because this was the Hard Part.

The part that made her whimper. The part where her Owner's eyes pulled her back to the Old Meanie. She felt herself falling, falling to Owner's pretty voice...

“I know, petal. I know. But you get to sleep with me every single night already, don't you? Yes you do, yes you do~ Good puppy.  You're making me sooooo proud, doing this. And very, very soon, we will be ready to get everyone else in one go~”

. . . . .

The Captain woke slowly, peeling his face off of the desk.  He groaned, rubbing his forehead as he glanced around the room.  What had he…?

Oh, right.  He had taken care of the latest traitor, and then he was getting a small nap in.  Something told him that he needed to be extra vigilant for the next while, to find out as many traitors as pawsi...as possible. Those in charge were counting on him.

...It was a little weird that he had been so tired he had collapsed into his chair completely naked and covered in a sheen of sweat, or the smile he was unable to wipe from his face, but that was okay.

And in the corner of his mind, just out of sight...a whisper.

It didn’t have to make sense to puppy.

[genericpuff]

I've been griping about the normalization of identity outing via social media for a while now. To put it simply, it's become almost some weird societal requirement that if you don't have every detail listed about yourself in your Twitter/FB/etc. bio, then it means you have "something to hide" or that you're not as "verifiable" because your account looks indistinct from that of a bot.

But that societal norm has really only benefited the people who profit off of that information in some way, whether it's through selling user data or through weaponizing details about a person against them.

I know that a lot of us love to use the fun little labels and acronyms in our bio that help others like us identify us as a 'safe person' or as someone who's in the same social/racial/identity groups as them. We're humans, we love to categorize things, it's in our nature (and it's fun!)

But if there's any time to start regulating that habit and challenging the norm that you're obligated to include all your personal info online - it's now.

There was a time when sock puppet accounts were expected and typical, not "suspicious".

There was a time when even age-sex-location was considered "too much information", but once it became the norm, we only EVER gave our personal information beyond generic ASL to people who we knew both online and in real life, or at the very least, people who we had known online for a significant enough amount of time that they had proved to be trustworthy (and even then, we didn't owe that information to anyone, ever; there are forum friends who I made online 10+ years ago and still talk to who do not know my personal information beyond broad strokes).

There was a time when simply being an avatar with a funny username was enough. And it still is enough, but massive platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been brainwashing us for years to believe that's not the case, under the guise of, "You wouldn't want to be dishonest, would you?" Through these same norms, we were led to believe that anime profile pictures are cringe, that having a fake online name is stupid, that the photos of you having fun at social events have to be taken JUST right otherwise you might imply to others that you're not actually having fun.

And considering how long these platforms have been around now, we have entire generations of children now who have been born and raised on that version of the ZuckMusk web, who have been taught that it "protects them" to express to everyone publicly their age, their school, their workplace, their family members, everything about themselves, because to not do so would be disingenuous.

None of this is to imply that the Internet was "safer" back in the day. I definitely should not have been on the Internet as much as I was when I was 13 in the late 2000's, it definitely did not benefit my brain development or my social skills. But the version of the Internet we currently exist in now is one that's been predicated on the false sense of security - the belief that if you're honest, everyone else has to be, too.

We've always had ways of identifying our safe people - by participating in the communities that we know are designed around our hobbies, our interests, our people. They might be small, they might not be as "cool" as the idea of netting yourself a big following of thousands of people, but they're also a lot safer and more genuine than that idealized following ever could be.

Don't feel pressured to include every bit of information about yourself in your bio. Even on Facebook, there's no rule that says you have to list your workplace, your school, your family members. There's no rule that says you have to list your personality type, queer labels, and neurodivergent disorders in your Twitter bio. There's no rule that you have to "prove" your life is real and fulfilled through the verification of photos, location tagging, and open-book sharing. If you share those photos, it should be because you genuinely want to share them, not because you feel some societal pressure to live up to others' expectations.

And I guarantee you, even your local mutuals on Facebook - your former classmates, family friends, distant relatives, coworkers, etc. - do not actually give that much of a damn about your personal life that they should be owed that much of a look into it on a daily basis. They've got their own shit going on, they literally do not need to know every detail about you.

I know it sounds scary. It also sounds kind of boring, when we've been used to a certain "way" of browsing and participating for years, that if we don't do so, it feels like being in the "out group" and that we're "breaking the rules". But I promise you, after spending over half my life online, those rules do not exist or benefit anyone who wouldn't profit off that information.

If you're wanting to learn how to branch off from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter and/or become more self-sufficient online, here are some guides to navigating the Internet like an old schooler that may help you!

FREE SITE BUILDER:

DIGITAL PIRACY 101:

(also in addition to everything mentioned here ^^^ they neglect to also mention Tor Browser which is a light and free-to-use browser software that allows you to browse anonymously; note that it's similar to a VPN in that it helps hide your identity online, HOWEVER it won't mask you from your ISP quite as effectively as a VPN, and if you sign into personal accounts with Tor, that's still going to obviously out you online lmao but I love using Tor for the odd time when I need to make a sock puppet for something and don't want it linked to my IP! and unlike a VPN, it's free to use!)

LEARN HOW TO USE RSS FEEDS:

People still use these! They're especially helpful for getting updates from your favorite pages and sites directly to your browser WITHOUT having to worry about stupid algorithm bullshit picking and choosing what you see. And many sites DO have RSS support once you know how to find it! (like adding in /rss at the end of a URL! Like this!)

FAKE EMAIL SERVICES:

LEARN HOW TO CODE IN HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT (AND MORE!):

DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:

I hope this helps arm you with some new knowledge in how to navigate the Internet like a Certified Old Person™️(like meeee!) Make your secret alt blogs for besties! Make your formal Facebook accounts that are clean of personal information and present the most neutral, safe-for-work version of yourself and keep the fun stuff to the secret profiles and chat groups that are just for you and friends/family/etc!! It might be "inconvenient" to have multiple accounts for the same purpose, but it's also INCREDIBLY freeing and can make your online experience both safer and more enjoyable.

Being "less" of yourself online does not make you any less you. It is your identity - you do not owe any amount of it to anyone beyond yourself. And in times like these, your identity is your greatest asset. Protect it.

[ooooo-mcyt]

I'm so fascinated by Joel's slow fight to unisolate himself across the Life Series.

I always got the sense Joel was utterly alone in Third Life. During the season with possibly the deepest emotional attachments, Joel was an outsider looking in, an asset or an annoyance, but never really part of anything. He had his wolves, but that's often a poor replacement for a team.

Joel tries, in Last Life, he gets himself a teammate, but then he's on red, and he has to leave. Joel cycles through teammates, Grian, Lizzie, and they're something, but then they go away, or they die. In a season where alliances switch and dance around daily, connection never feels truly solid, and Joel is still, fundamentally, alone.

Double Life helped. Not many people came out of Double Life better for it, but I'd call Joel an exception, because for the first time he had a steady partner. Someone he could trust, someone who wouldn't leave, someone who stood next to him until the end of the season.

As soon as Limited Life starts, Joel is attached to Jimmy's side, and he'd do just about anything to keep it that way. Grian is a bit more distant, I think, but he's a solid presence and Joel has a real team for the first time.

Secret Life is another step in the right direction. Another solid team. Bigger this time, even. Joel isn't alone, he doesn't have any chance to be, he's surrounded himself with people.

And then family. Gem is his main partner, but Joel has a whole web of people on his side to varying degrees, a support system, a 'family' as he calls it, and Joel wins.

I think Joel is a social person, I think that, for all his difficulty communicating at times, he loathes to be alone, and thrives when he's surrounded by people. I think Joel started out the life series completely alone, I think it was miserable, and I think it took so much time and effort to untangle himself from isolation and slowly start surrounding himself with people. Which is a character arc I'm genuinely so fond of.

[river-selkie]

Someone stole my pelt.

It wasn't a man that took it from me to steal me as his bride like a traditional selkie story.

It wasn't my mother or my father, trying to hide the truth from me because I came into the world wearing an animal skin.

It wasn't even the doctor who delivered me, trying to make me live a human life because I was some "abomination".

I should have had a pelt, but it never came. My blood, my bones, my very soul seem to cry out for a life I never got the opportunity to live. Born for a pelt I would never wear. A body I could never change into. Something I could only imagine by watching others of my kind, sitting on the docks in communal groups in comfort while I'm "other". The furless, bipedal creature that can't enter the water like they can, watching them with my tiny eyes and hair that sprouts from my head and wearing my funny clothes.

To me, I am them.

To them, I am human.

This fact never killed my instincts. Since I could move, I have wanted to be near water. My infant hands would play with cubes of ice and reach for videos on the old TV screen of oceans and pools and water spraying from broken pipes with a smile on my face. I couldn't keep my hands out of the duck ponds and city fountains once I was able to walk. Then, when I could swim, seemingly no one could take me out of the pool. Even a near drowning experience only made me frustrated, wanting to learn how to swim better so I could go under the water next time.

One year, I found the show H2O: Just Add Water, and I was mesmerized. The idea of being able to visit some magical moon pool and suddenly be able to stay in the sea, swimming effortlessly with a tail I could conjure up at any time was a dream come true. My unrestricted internet access led me down the wormhole of "real spells online", and I was wearing a necklace everyday blessed under some full moon and drinking salty water from a jar every day. I could cry and cry and cry all day when I never developed a single scale, never got a selkie pelt, and couldn't go under the water the way I wanted to.

I can't explain it. I don't know why I am the way I am, but clearly something about me was misplaced when I was born. My wiring, my soul, something innate is meant to be off the land. My hands feel webbed and like they're missing claws. My teeth feel too short compared to what I seem to know they should be. I always want salmon and tuna and trout, yet will never be able to take a bite of any of them. I was born in a dry place, as if trying to keep me away on purpose. I don't know anyone in my life who doesn't think of me as some sort of water being, comparing me often to seals, otters, mermaids, water birds, and yet I feel so much like a selkie who has been forcibly trapped in a house, being told to forget who I am, to not look for the pelt, to not dip my toes in the tides.

It's unfair. I was robbed. Someone took my pelt, and there's nothing I can do about that. But it will never stop me from trying to get as close as possible to living how I was meant to. It won't stop me from walking into the freezing waters at the marina. From digging through sand with my bare hands. From eating every shellfish that crosses my path. From immersing myself, clothes and all, into the running river hidden away behind the trees. From walking the halls with a fur blanket draped around my shoulders, dragging along the artifical floors while I pretend they're sand and rock. From visiting my kind in the wild, even if they look back at me and cannot see what I feel. I'll be waiting forever to get in the water, but I have done what I can by moving towards the coast and out of the mountainous alpine desert.

Nothing will take my spirit from me, even when everything else has been stripped away.

A selkie is a selkie, even without her pelt.

[novella-november]

Well. I have a feeling I'm about to have a million new followers. (March 31st, 2025; not an April Fool's joke, unless Nanowrimo has very poor taste and timing)

Here's a link that explains in long video format the whole entire thing in detail:

and to sum it up:

This blog was made as an Anti-Generative AI to Nanowrimo, as well as a way to actually build a friendly, low-pressure, helpful community of aspiring writers, without the hard-fast-do-it-or-die pressure brought on by nanowrimo.

There is no official "contest" -- only a community coming together to inspire each other to write, help out with motivation by setting community goals, keeping participation motivation via Trackbear.app, etc!

The most popular writing challenge is still November for most people, but I myself have also started to keep a year-round, daily writing goal of 444 via the website 4thewords, which has been an extreme help in getting me to write a little at a time.

This year has been very hectic for everyone what with the election results so I haven't been very active on tumblr (I think everyone can understand that) but I was originally planning on also having each month of the year being a different themed writing / art challenge but got a bit distracted real life.

So, what is the Novella November Challenge?

It's a fun challenge where writers come together to write 30,000 (or your own personal writing goal!) words in 30 days, sharing tips, writing advice, plot ideas, accessibility aids, and committing to having fun while explicitly fighting back against Generative AI by using our own words and disavowing the use of scraping and generating to take away the livelyhoods of artists of all spectrums, and proving everyone who insists "generative AI is an accessibility tool" wrong by committing to our creative visions and making it easier for everyone to find the tools they need to succeed by sharing tips, free programs, and finding a like-minded community to support you! 💙

There is no official website, there is no required place to show your participation, this is a community initiative that will never be monetized by predatory sponsors or dangerous moderators abusing their power.

This blog is here to inspire everyone, regardless of experience level, to write and create the story they want to tell, in their own words, while striving to remain a fun, low-pressure challenge that doesn't turn into a stressful spiral, like often happened with Nano.

Want to start writing but not sure how? Don't have money to spend on expensive writing programs? Have no fear!

LibreOffice: An always free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Word (and Microsoft's other office suits)

4Thewords: A website (both desktop and mobile web browser) that syncs your writing cross platform to the cloud, with built-in daily word goals, streak tracking, and you can fight monsters with your word count to game-ify writing!

Trackbear: A website dedicated to tracking your writing, setting custom goals, and creating leaderboards for community participation; you can join the year-long community leaderboard with the Join Code "f043cc66-6d5d-45b2-acf1-204626a727ba" and a November-limited one will release on November 1st as well.

Want to use Text to Speech to dictate your novel?

Most modern phones have a built-in option available on your keyboard settings which can be used on any writing program on your phone, and most modern PCs that allow a microphone (including headphone) connection has some kind of native dictation function, which you can find by opening your start panel and searching your computer for "Speech to text" or "voice to text".

Want to write while on the go, but don't want to / can't use the small phone keyboard to type, or speech to text?

You can, for as cheap as $40, buy a bluetooth keyboard that you can pair with your smart phone or tablet and use to write in any and all writing applications on your phone -- this allows you to write on the goal (especially using cross-platform websites or services, like 4thewords or google docs) , and the small screen can also help minimize distractions by muting notifications in your writing time.

[kaladinsspear]

the Sanderson fandom is so funny to me. Like, we are a massive and passionate fan base, but seem to fly completely under the radar.

How many times have we crashed servers when Brandon releases new books/merch/tickets/ect? Often enough that he warns his web hoasts, but they dont believe him.

He wanted to have more space for dragonsteel nexus, but the convention hall didnt believe that he could draw that many people. Tickets sold out in an hour (😭😭😭 if anybody knows any way to get tickets hmu! I can pay! I was just at work!)

Like, when I try to talk to people in real life I either get 'OMG I have read every book he has ever written!' or 'I have never herd of this man in my life.' There is no middle ground.

Its kind of perfect actually. Its a big enough fan base that we have a community, but its not overly commodified by being to main stream.

I just find it unendingly funny that no matter how many times Brandon warns his vendors, no body believes that he is actually as popular as he is. 😂

[kabr0ztrousers]

Kabr0z Writes Episode 14: Artistic Intent

Find the rest of the anthology here!

CWs: exhibition; semi-public sex; very light femdom; knotting and creampie;

Author's Note: Super short one today, work's been a real fuck 

#########################################

A newspaper ad. How many places actually advertise in newspapers any more? "Woman wanted to pose for painting class, starts 7pm Tuesday evening until 10pm, £50"

Not like you're doing anything else that evening, and £50 is £50, so you rang the number and gave your name.

Tuesday night. Quarter to 7 in the evening. You found the room in the community centre and let yourself in. A tall white lupine was setting up easels, carrying two under each rippling arm. He half-looked at you "Good, you've arrived. You can strip behind that curtain then sit on the chair. Any pose will do, but make sure it's comfortable. You'll be sat like that for the full three hours"

Five minutes later, you'd settled on a pose, sat languidly over the chair, one arm over the back, the other on your leg. You could feel a draft in the room, bringing your skin up in goosebumps and hardening your nipples. You could see the lupine staring when he thought you wouldn't notice. That's fine. You're here to be looked at.

The students filed in, a mixed bag of sexes, ages, species, they set up canvases and prepared palettes as the white wolf spoke 

"We're studying anatomy today. Look at the subject, reduce the forms to shapes. Note the angles of the joints, how her limbs hang, the shading on her skin." You could almost hear his mouth watering as he continued "Pay attention to her hips, her waist, the roundness of the breasts, the arch of the neck, how her hair falls across her shoulders"

He wasn't hiding his stare now. Almost slavering as he looked up at you. Sitting here, exposed with a dozen pairs of eyes on you, you could feel yourself getting worked up. He could probably smell it.

The hours passed painfully slowly. Every so often the lupine would opine on some detail of your position or your body, drawing the painters attention to your ass, your belly, never missing a chance to draw attention to your tits. You couldn't help but get wet hearing him describe every inch of you.

The session ended, the students filing out and leaving their work to dry on the easels. 

"Take a look, see what they've come out with" The lupine gave you a hand and supported you as you put weight back on your stiff limbs. You could feel his muscles under the fur, strong and wiry. He could probably throw you around like a ragdoll if he wanted to.

You perused the work, some had focused in on your posture, ignoring your face, some had completely missed the mark, your body looking gangly or distorted, one had rendered you entirely in a web of triangles, a baffling web of fractal lines. 

The lupine had his hand on your waist. You could feel hot, heavy breaths on your still-naked body.

You turned on him. Stepped forward. The floor looked hard, and cold. You didn't care. He was warm, and soft. You sat him down and planted yourself on top of him. "You've been imagining this all night" barely whispering into his ear

"I had expected to buy you dinner first" he growled with arousal, already hard underneath you

Your hands were already busy underneath you, unfastening his trousers as he tugged them off beneath you. His cock sprung free in front of you, reaching almost up to your belly button and already leaking canine precum, glittering droplets rolling down the shaft. 

You pushed him down, his hands still on your waist as he lay on his back, cock poised under you. Guided by his hands, you pushed the tip inside. You rolled your hips, keeping only the first couple of inches in you. His mouth hung open as he screwed his eyes shut at your teasing. Ever so slowly you took him deeper, inch by inch. Pulling out a little, dipping down a little. Every time your pussy rubbed against the end of his cock, you could see him getting a little closer, and you'd stop a moment. He had his fun while you were on that seat, you can have yours now. 

Minute by minute you teased and edged him, the sound of his ragged breathing making you hotter and wetter as you went. You took the last inch. Only his knot left now, and he'd have to earn that. You started riding him, leaning back so the end of his cock rubbed your upper wall, pushing against your g-spot both ways, making your orgasm well up ever more inside you. You could feel it filling you, his hand left your waist and set to work on your clit, a thumb frantically rubbing your eager nub, driving you wilder and wilder with every stroke. 

Release. Your hips bucked as you cried out in pleasure. The lupine didn't waste any time, driving you down onto him again. You let your weight drop, pushing the knot inside and riding him harder, trying to prolong your orgasm as you felt him start to spurt and he groaned out his satisfaction. You kept on working your hips, dragging the still-hard throbbing cock around your insides, letting him coat your interior with cum until you came to rest, still sat on top of his cock, enjoying how much the knot filled you and made your pussy drool around it. 

It took a good twenty minutes to soften enough to work out of you, followed by a flow of thick cum dripping out and onto the front of his trousers. 

You kissed 

"So... Kebab and a pint?"

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI art has no anti-cooption immune system

TONIGHT (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

One thing Myspace had going for it: it was exuberantly ugly. The decision to let users with no design training loose on a highly customizable user-interface led to a proliferation of Myspace pages that vibrated with personality.

The ugliness of Myspace wasn't just exciting in a kind of outsider/folk-art way (though it was that). Myspace's ugliness was an anti-cooption force-field, because corporate designers and art-directors would, by and large, rather break their fingers and gouge out their eyes than produce pages that looked like that.

In this regard, Myspace was the heir to successive generations of "design democratization" that gave amateur communities, especially countercultural ones, a space to operate in where authentic community members could be easily distinguished between parasitic commercializers.

The immediate predecessors to Myspace's ugliness-as-a-feature were the web, and desktop publishing. Between the img tag, imagemaps, the blink tag, animated GIFs, and the million ways that you could weird a page with tables and padding, the early web was positively bursting with individual personality. The early web balanced in an equilibrium between the plunder-friendliness of "view source" and the topsy-turvy design imperatives of web-based layout, which confounded both print designers (no fixed fonts! RGB colorspaces! dithering!) and even multimedia designers who'd cut their teeth on Hypercard and CD ROMs (no fixed layout!).

Before the web came desktop publishing, the million tractor-feed ransom notes combining Broderbund Print Shop fonts, joystick-edited pixel-art, and a cohort of enthusiasts ranging from punk zinesters to community newsletter publishers. As this work proliferated on coffee-shop counters and telephone poles, it was visibly, obviously distinct from the work produced by "real" designers – that is, designers who'd been a) trained and b) paid by a corporation to employ that training.

All of this matters, and not just for aesthetic reasons. Communities – especially countercultural ones – are where our society's creative ferment starts. Getting your start in the trenches of the counterculture wars is no proof against being co-opted later (indeed, many of the designers who cut their teeth desktop publishing weird zines went on to pull their hair and roll their eyes at the incredible fuggliness of the web). But without that zone of noncommercial, antiestablishment, communitarian low weirdness, design and culture would stagnate.

I started thinking about this 25 years ago, the first time I met William Gibson. I'd been assigned by the Globe and Mail to interview him for the launch of All Tomorrow's Parties:

https://craphound.com/nonfic/transcript.html

One of the questions I asked was about his famous aphorism, "The street finds its own use for things." Given how quickly each post-punk tendency had been absorbed by commercial culture, couldn't we say that "Madison Avenue finds its own use for the street"? His answer started me down a quarter-century of thinking and writing about this subject:

I worry about what we'll do in the future, [about the instantaneous co-opting of pop culture]. Where is our new stuff going to come from? What we're doing pop culturally is like burning the rain forest. The biodiversity of pop culture is really, really in danger. I didn't see it coming until a few years ago, but looking back it's very apparent.

I watch a sort of primitive form of the recommodification machine around my friends and myself in sixties, and it took about two years for this clumsy mechanism to get and try to sell us The Monkees.

In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since. The scene in Seattle that Nirvana came from: as soon as it had a label, it was on the runways of Paris.

Ugliness, transgressiveness and shock all represent an incoherent, grasping attempt to keep the world out of your demimonde – not just normies and squares, but also and especially enthusiastic marketers who want to figure out how to sell stuff to you, and use you to sell stuff to normies and squares.

I think this is what drove a lot of people to 4chan (remember, before 4chan was famous for incubating neofascism, it was the birthplace of Anonymous): its shock culture, combined with a strong cultural norm of anonymity, made for a difficult-to-digest, thoroughly spiky morsel that resisted recommodification (for a while).

All of this brings me to AI art (or AI "art"). In his essay on the "eerieness" of AI art, Henry Farrell quotes Mark Fisher's "The Weird and the Eerie":

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-language-models-are-uncanny

"Eeriness" here is defined as "when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something." AI is eerie because it produces the seeming of intent, without any intender:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

When we contemplate "authentic" countercultural work – ransom-note DTP, the weird old web, seizure-inducing Myspace GIFs – it is arresting because the personality of the human entity responsible for it shines through. We might be able to recognize where that person ganked their source-viewed HTML or pixel-optimized GIF, but we can also make inferences about the emotional meaning of those choices. To see that work is to connect to a mind. That mind might not necessarily belong to someone you want to be friends with or ever meet in person, but it is unmistakably another person, and you can't help but learn something about yourself from the way that their work makes you feel.

This is why corporate work is so often called "soulless." The point of corporate art is to dress the artificial person of the corporation in the stolen skins of the humans it uses as its substrate. Corporations are potentially immortal, artificial colony organisms. They maintain the pretense of personality, but they have no mind, only action that is the crescendo of an orchestra of improvised instruments played by hundreds or thousands of employees and a handful of executives who are often working directly against one another:

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

The corporation is – as Charlie Stross has it – the "slow AI" that is slowly converting our planet to the long-prophesied grey goo (or, more prosaically, wildfire ashes and boiled oceans). The real thing that is signified by CEOs' professed fears of runaway AI is runaway corporations. As Ted Chiang says, the experience of being nominally in charge of a corporation that refuses to do what you tell it to is the kind of thing that will give you nightmares about autonomous AI turning on its masters:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

The job of corporate designers is to find the signifiers of authenticity and dress up the corporate entity's robotic imperatives in this stolen flesh. Everything about AI is done in service to this goal: the chatbots that replace customer service reps are meant to both perfectly mimic a real, competent corporate representative while also hewing perfectly to corporate policy, without ever betraying the real human frailties that none of us can escape.

In the same way, the shillbots that pretend to be corporate superfans online are supposed to perfectly amplify the corporate message, the slow AI's conception of its own virtues, without injecting their own off-script, potentially cringey enthusiasms.

The Hollywood writers' strike was, at root, about the studio execs' dream that they could convert the "insights" of focus groups and audience research into a perfect script, without having to go through a phalanx of lippy screenwriters who insisted on explaining why they think your idea is stupid. "Hey, nerd, make me another ET, except make the hero a dog, and set it on Mars" is exactly how you prompt an AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Corporate design's job is to produce the seeming of intention without any intender. The "personality" we're meant to sense when we encounter corporate design isn't the designer's, nor the art director's, nor even the CEO's. The "personality" is meant to be the slow AI's, but a corporation doesn't have a personality.

In his 2018 short story "Noon in the antilibrary," Karl Schroeder describes an "antilibrary" as an endlessly deep anaerobic lagoon of generative botshit:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/08/18/104097/noon-in-the-antilibrary/

The antilibrary is a generative AI system that can produce entire librarys’-worth of fake books with fake authors, fake citations by other fake experts with their own fake books and biographies and fake social media accounts, on-demand and instantly. It was speculation in 2018; it’s possible now. Creating an antilibrary is just a matter of investing in a sufficient number of graphics cards and electricity.

https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/after-the-internet

Reading Karl's reflections on the antilibrary crystallized something for me that I've been thinking about for a quarter-century, since I interviewed Gibson at the Penguin offices in north Toronto. It snapped something into place that I've trying to fit since encountering Henry's thoughts on the "eeriness" of AI work and the intent without an intender.

It made me realize why I dislike AI art so much, on a deep, aesthetic level. The point of an image generator is to buffer the intention of the prompter (which might be genuinely creative and bursting with personality) in layers of automated decision-making that flense the final product of any hint of the mind that caused its creation.

The most febrile, deeply weird and authentic prompts of the most excluded outsiders produce images that feel the same as the corporate AI illustrations that project the illusion of personality from the immortal, transhuman colony organism that is the limited liability corporation.

AI art is born coopted. Even the 4chan equivalent of AI – the deeply transgressive and immoral nonconsensual pornography – feels no different from the "official" AI porn churned out by "real" pornographers. "Shrimp Jesus" and other SEO-optimized Facebook slop is so uncanny because it is simultaneously "weird" ("that which does not belong") and yet it belongs in the same aesthetic bucket of the most anodyne Corporate Memphis ephemera:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

We call it "generative" but AI art can't generate the kind of turnover that aerates the aesthetic soil. An artform that can't be transgressive is sterile, stillborn, a dead end.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/20/ransom-note-force-field/#antilibraries

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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